Somersworth School Added to National Historic Registry

The Hilltop School in Somersworth has been named to the National Register of Historic Places.

Its predecessor was Great Falls High School, the first public high school in New Hampshire constructed in 1849 after a law that cleared the way for municipalities to develop centralized school districts and build schools.

By the 1920s, that building was in disrepair. The school board secured funding for a new school.

Somersworth High School was built on the site of the old school in 1927. When a new high school was built in 1956, the building became Hilltop Elementary School. It closed in 2007.

The Georgian Revival-style school has many of its original features, including coat closets, gas light fixtures near the exit doors and brick-lined niches for the water fountains.

These days lotteries are everywhere. Walk into most convenience stores and you’ll see scratch tickets on sale. Big Powerball payouts stretching across state lines make headlines, but fifty years ago the idea that lotteries were sinful and contributed to society’s moral decay was more widespread than it is today.

You may be surprised to learn that in the 1960s New Hampshire was the first state to launch a legal lottery. It came after a fight involving politicians of opposing sides, religious moralists, mob members, and the FBI.

A New Hampshire school named to the National Register of Historic Places has an unusual feature on its grounds: the gravesite of a dog considered to be the father of the American Cocker Spaniel.

The marble block at the edge of the Rollinsford Grade School's playground marks the remains of Obo II, who was born in the United States in 1882 and died in 1895. He was the offspring of two cocker spaniel show dogs from England. His owner, James Willey, owned part of the land now occupied by the school.

The Hall of Flags at New Hampshire's State House, with some bloodstained and bullet-ridden from conflicts going back to the Civil War, is among those on this year's "Seven to Save" list from the New Hampshire Preservation Alliance

Efforts have been made to preserve the 115 flags, seen in the State House lobby. A legislative committee is trying to seek a consensus on a conservation plan.

The last remaining building from Concord's first hospital has been added to the New Hampshire State Register of Historic Places.

The New Hampshire Division of Historical Resources says the Margaret Pillsbury General Hospital Annex was part of a complex that opened in 1891. The first Concord building constructed solely for use as a hospital, Margaret Pillsbury General Hospital was deliberately located in a working-class section of the city at a time when the Abbott-Downing stagecoach company and the Boston and Maine Railroad were major employers.